The River Wissey is another so far unexplored East Anglian river. Like the Lark  and Brandon Creek  the Wissey feeds into the Great Ouse. “While we’re here shall we explore the little rivers?” the Tentatrice First Mate had suggested.  Boatwif wouldn’t admit to a Tick List syndrome – but there is a chart on her computer of waterways so far explored – and this year the Cam, the Little Ouse and now the Wissey have been added to the “Boated”...

9 miles from Ely along the Great Ouse is The Ship Inn – it sits at the mouth of the Little Ouse River, often referred to as Brandon Creek.  The little convoy (Cleddau and Tentatrice) regrouped as travelling partners at Littleport on Monday morning      and set off to explore another previously unvisited East Anglian waterway.  To turn onto a river about a third of the width of the Great Ouse came as rather a shock,    especially as the...

To be bored in Ely is to be bored with life… that was the gist of a conversation with an Ely local a few weeks ago. With this last weekend in Ely full of sound and colour, there was little chance of being bored.  Cleddau was moored alongside the Riverside Park,  a few hundred metres from Jubilee Gardens, the ‘bandstand park’. Quite early on Saturday morning the boom of a public address system, songs and a rhythmic beat indicated that...

There was time to squeeze in one last little boat trip before the Cal Clan flew back to the US. But where to? From Ely, heading north, it’s a lock-free 16 mile straight wide trip out to Denver. A return to Pope’s Corner (south bound) could lead to a trip along the green weed-choked Old West River – or there was the river route from Pope’s Corner towards Cambridge. The latter option won the day, after all there are two...

29th July – 1st August Cleddau had arrived in Ely on a Sunday. Unusually, especially on a summer weekend, there were plenty of mooring spaces. Where were the gleaming white cruisers that cluster in front of the restaurants and along the waterfront? Maybe Friday’s tempest and Saturday’s gales had deterred the usual flotillas… The boat was tied up at about midday far enough away from any potential pub noise – and a mere few paces from the Jubilee Gardens. At...

Remember that one hoot of the horn?  (See end of previous post). It indicated Cleddau’s turn to the right, a right turn on hitherto unexplored waters. First impressions of the River Cam were of a total contrast from the Old West River: the Cam is wide,    it feels deep, in many places there are shady trees on the eastern bank – and the 7mph limit provides real speed opportunities after the snail’s pace of the Old West…  There are...

The return journey from Bedford to Cheshire has started. The route has been covered twice before of course, in 2010  and in 2014 . From Bedford to Denver Sluice it would be downstream all the way. However often you travel the same waterway no cruise is ever the same as the ones that have gone before: lock companions change, water levels change, waterway surroundings change… The first couple of miles from Priory Marina (Wednesday 18th July) took an inordinately long...

It was a date agreed four years ago: “Let’s do it again,” the Tentatrice crew had said, “let’s go back to the Bedford River Festival in 2018.” And so it was. After a winter of route planning, a spring of impatience awaiting Cleddau’s release from the Nantwich paint shed, after a summer of creating broom handle flag poles, after 353 miles, 110 locks, 8 waterways and a sea crossing, Cleddau eventually reached the site of the 2018 Bedford River Festival. ...

The Cal Guys are both pretty interested in things that move – as relatively frequent visitors to the UK they can hold forth on transatlantic airlines and on aircraft types. Cal Guy Snr has often been to the Marine Corps Air Show at Miramar (just north of San Diego) and so a visit to the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden     to examine some (slightly) older aircraft seemed a good plan. To see an aircraft being pushed up a slope...

School’s out – the Summer Break has begun (for US children, that is). Within hours of the Cal Clan flying into Heathrow Cal Guy Snr was campaigning to be on the boat… Before taking to the water, however, certain things needed checking out: The taste of a British ice cream  The equipment at a British fire station (Ampthill)  The livery of newly painted Cleddau     The sound and look of a Beta 43 engine…  “This will be different,” the Captain...